UX Lisbon: The Next 10 Years

At the User Experience Lisbon (UXLX) conference in Portugal, Brian Fling explored what we need to consider about the coming decade when designing products today in his presentation: The Next 10 Years . Here's my notes on his presentation:

Clients ask for applications to be designed and created but often, they can't see the next five years so they don't where they are going. For instance, the biggest companies in the World do not know what to do with mobile.

An average iPhone application project takes 6 to 9 months. Average cost is less than a typical 3 month Web application engagement. The happiness factor ranges between 50-80%. Returns on margins are 10-15%. They should be double that.

Data: if you take a user centric approach to mobile design, you need to get data into a smaller interface. This takes a long time.

Mobile: 94% of generation Y has a mobile phone, for the modern generation they are infused with technology from birth. We will be outnumbered in the next five years by digital natives.

Context: the interaction we have to design needs to bring lots of different contexts into the equation. Context is the circumstances that form the setting for an event under which actions and terms can be understood.

Standards: not platforms or web standards but how we can solve problems that influence how tools get used. We need to share how we solve problems with each other.

When we work on amazing products and innovate, why do we sometime fail? The diffusion of innovation states there is a bell curve as more people start using a new technology. How do companies cross the chasm from early adopter to early majority.

Apple refreshes product lines before they become tired. They want to be the innovators. Vision brings employees and customers together to cross the chasm.

To do the impossible you have to question the conventions.

Start thinking 5 to 10 years out: what are you going to work on that will have a lasting legacy? That vision is infectious. People will bind to it.